Kate Ross: Signs of life on recruitment front

I would say the general feel from the jobs market right now is cautious optimism.

Businesses are feeling better and recruitment is showing signs of life.

Consumerism is still slow, but you would expect this as things have really only just started to improve.

Recruitment has seen three strong months with July, August and September, showing a steady upwards trend. October is only just over and it was reasonably positive as well.

Employers are starting to organize themselves for next year and we have seen new positions come into the business and be filled with well qualified candidates.

We have noticed candidates becoming aware of the market changing and asking questions of old. "Will this role give me development or other opportunities?" or "Will they increase the salary within the short term?". These types of questions have not been asked for over a year, it has been more about gratitude in obtaining employment.

The temp market is the same; with an increase in temp roles available, candidates are ensuring that rates are good and they are choosing the roles that suit them.

We are seeing quite a marked difference between the progress in the Wellington and Auckland markets. Auckland went into the recession sooner and I have seen it showing signs of recovery first. We have found clients in Auckland are moving forward with recruitment and newly created roles or replacement positions are coming through.

The temp and contract market is very strong currently and we have seen a significant increase in short and long term positions, to the point where it has, on occasion, been necessary to advertise for even the very short term temp roles.

In the capital it has taken clients longer to re-build and start recruiting again. The government message has consistently been that recruitment is to remain on hold. Some large government departments are still re-structuring, and this will continue for a while yet.

Government has a major impact on what goes on and recruitment has gone into a "holding pattern". Every subsidiary or anything associated with government is holding too. I feel this can only last for so long as we have been told on many occasions that workloads are high, staff are pushed and extra resource will have to come at some stage.

Movement is beginning to be driven also by candidates who have survived the year and are ready to apply for new positions.

Ad responses are still high online and the relevance of candidates applying for most of the roles advertised is below average, again showing quantity not quality, something that we battle with constantly.

We have thankfully noticed that the same people are not consistently applying for every job we advertise, so whether they have found work or now being more targeted in their approach the desperation seems to have gone out of the market.

Candidates in temporary positions are getting back their confidence and are now asking for pay increases if they have been in the assignment for an extended period of time.

This shows us that the temporary market (especially in Auckland) has picked up and candidates now feel they have options. Personally, while acknowledging the improvements, I would not say we can be overly confident just yet.

I feel leading into Christmas we will have peaks and troughs; it's still a bit of a guessing game knowing what clients and what work you can really count on.

Yes, it's better than the start of the year, much better, but business are still recovering. Some clients will leave new opportunities until the New Year, leaving the overhead of carrying an employee over this time.

January is always a write-off (for most of us) and we will head into February 2010 with high hopes and expectations of it being a good year.

* Kate Ross is the managing director of Kinetic Recruitment.